Tempt (Take It Off #3)(11)
Author: Cambria Hebert

As promised, he applied a Band-Aid and then put away the kit. We worked together, cleaning up the debris, lining up a few of the stray seats against the wall and blocking the broken windows with whatever we could find.

My eyes strayed to the broken radio. Regret burned the back of my throat. How different things would’ve been if we could just call someone. But there would be no calling for help.

But I did manage to find my suitcase, and I squealed with joy. I had a toothbrush, a comb, and even some tiny bottles of shampoo and soap! I’d never been so excited over shampoo.

Nash managed to find three cans of soda, another water bottle, and a couple bags of peanuts and pretzels and piled them in an extra chair. I added the box of Luna bars to the stash and the pack of gum I found in my suitcase. It wasn’t much, but it was a hell of a lot better than nothing.

By the time we were done, I was sweaty, thirsty, and even dirtier.

“I have some bad news,” Nash said, coming out of the cockpit and looking at me grimly.

“What?” I asked, a sinking feeling in my stomach.

He held up a cell phone. A very broken and cracked cell phone.

“Was that yours?”

He nodded. “It’s useless.”

“I haven’t even found mine.”

“I didn’t find another either.”

The odds of one of our cells even getting any service here, if they worked, was slim to none anyway, so I tried not to take it too hard.

“I found the protein bars,” I said, holding up the box, trying to lighten the mood.

“God, I’m starving.”

He took the box out of my hands and looked at it. Then he looked back at me and lifted an eyebrow. “Nutrition for women?” he read off the front.

I grinned. “Don’t worry. If you start to grow boobs, I’ll lend you a bra.”

He gave me a wolfish smile. “Does that mean you wouldn’t be wearing one?”

Desire swirled low in my belly and for a few long moments, I stared at him, unable to say a word. Then I snapped out of it. “I found my suitcase,” I said dumbly. “I have extra.”

“Too bad,” he drawled, looking back at the box. “So why are these for women?”

I shrugged. “I think it’s because they’re high in folic acid and vitamin D. Those are vitamins that are especially good for women.”

“Chocolate chip cookie dough flavored,” he said. “I’ll eat anything flavored like a cookie, even if I start to grow boobs.”

I laughed. “They’re my favorite.”

“What do you say we take our dinner and only meal today out on the beach?”

I nodded. He opened the box and pulled out two bars with brown and blue wrappers and the words Luna Protein scrawled across the front. “These are tiny,” he grumped.

“They fill me up.” I defended my snacks.

He snorted. “You’re tiny too.”

“I’m almost five-foot-seven!”

“I’m six-three.”

“Take two,” I lamented, realizing a single bar definitely wasn’t going to be enough for him.

He shook his head. “No way. We have to conserve this stuff.”

I nodded. He grabbed up a can of Coke and motioned for me to follow him. We made our way down to the sand in no time. The sun was still pretty high in the sky so I knew we had hours of daylight left.

We sat down side by side, facing the ocean, and he handed me a bar. I tore open the wrapper, relieved to see only a little bit of the chocolate coating had melted onto the inside of the wrapper. I groaned when the chocolate hit my tongue. “So good,” I moaned.

“If you could eat anything in the world right now, what would it be?” Nash asked me as he took a big bite of his bar.

“Hmmm. Veggie pizza with the pan crust from Pizza Hut. That’s the thickest. And a chocolate milkshake.”

“A girl that knows what she wants.”

“What about you?”

“A huge cheeseburger piled high with all the fixings, onion rings, and a chocolate Coke.”

“A chocolate Coke?”

“Please tell me you’ve had it,” he said, stuffing the final bite of his dinner in his mouth.

“Never even heard of it.”

He fell back on the sand like he’d been shot.

I giggled. “What is it?”

“It’s basically a fountain Coke with chocolate syrup swirled in it.”

“That doesn’t sound like it goes together,” I said, wrinkling my nose.

“Silence, woman!” he commanded. Then he gave me an ornery smile.

I rolled my eyes and took another bite of my bar and suddenly felt guilty for eating it. His was gone and I knew he had to be starving.

“Open your mouth and close your eyes, and you will get a big surprise,” I repeated the rhyme from my childhood.

“Do you have a dead bug in your pocket or something?”

I wagged my eyebrows. “Are you scared?”

Challenge flared in his eyes and then he closed them and opened his mouth. I popped the rest of my uneaten bar into his waiting mouth. When his lips closed around it his eyes shot open and he sat up. He didn’t chew, just stared at me. “What the hell did you do that for?” he said around the mouthful of food.

“You shouldn’t talk with food in your mouth,” I informed him.

He gave me a dark look.

“You need it more than I do. I’m fine.” In truth, I was starving too, but I was smaller and didn’t need as much as him.

He acted like he was going to spit it out into his hand. I grabbed his very impressive bicep. “Don’t you dare,” I warned. “That’s a waste of perfectly good food.”

He made a frustrated sound and then gave in and chewed it up. “Why did you do that!” he demanded when he was done.

I tilted my head to the side. “Because you saved my life.”

He snorted. “Honey, I crashed the plane.”

I shook my head. “I’m pretty sure you’re the only reason it landed here instead of diving straight into the ocean and killing us both.”

“I didn’t do enough. I didn’t keep it up in the air.”

I reached out and covered my hand with his. He looked at our hands and then back at me. “When you realized we were going down, that it couldn’t be stopped, do you remember what you did?”

“Tried not to shit my pants?” he guessed.

I smiled. “Well, thank goodness you didn’t. Then I’d be stuck smelling you.”